A patch on the road

The transport bill averts calamity, but not by much and not for long

EXACTLY 56 years after Dwight Eisenhower signed into law a bill authorising the construction of an interstate-highway network, Congress passed a transport bill on June 29th. John Mica, who chairs the House transport committee, boasted of passing “the most important transportation reform bill since Eisenhower”. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate’s environment committee, crowed that Congress had “saved” the transport network Eisenhower had created.

In truth, they have little to brag about. Yes, this was the first long-term transport bill since the last one expired in September 2009. And they did pass it in the nick of time: the last in a series of short-term extensions was due to expire the next day. But they only “saved” America’s transport network by avoiding a foreseeable and utterly unnecessary disaster.

Still, the new bill passed both the Republican-dominated House and the Democrat-controlled Senate by large margins—no mean feat these days. Both sides made concessions. From their bill Republicans dropped provisions mandating construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and restricting the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate coal ash. The final bill authorises around $120 billion over the next 27 months; the bill that John Boehner, the Speaker, advocated earlier this year would have given $260 billion over the next five years.

But Republicans prevailed in a battle over streamlining environmental regulations and reviews, designed to speed completion of transport projects. And this bill, like previous ones, heavily favours roads and highways over mass transit (dedicated funds for bike and walking paths also faced the chop). It keeps transit funding roughly at its current level, which mass-transit advocates say is far too low.

A functional compromise bill is nothing to sneeze at, but neither is this one much to cheer about. On the crucial subject of revenue it does far too little. It raises a modest amount by increasing premiums paid to the federal pension-insurance corporation. But the federal tax on petrol has been stuck at its current 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, even as Americans drive less in more efficient cars. Raising the petrol tax is political poison, so Congress has hit upon a drearily predictable solution: to take the money from somewhere else.

This is not new: between 2008 and 2010 Congress transferred $34.5 billion from the general fund into the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), which collects federal petrol taxes and funds transport spending. The new bill gives the HTF $18.8 billion from the general fund and $2.4 billion from a fund to repair underground storage tanks. Earlier this year the Congressional Budget Office forecast the HTF’s insolvency by 2013. The current bill forestalls this until 2015. Eisenhower would be unimpressed.